Nonik

In the course of drifting on about carrying tea cups up the stairs at reference 1, I mentioned that my favourite beer glass used to be what I called a sleever, more properly called a nonik glass, cunningly shaped with a bulge running around the glass about a third of the way down, primarily as an aid to stacking without jamming, but also as an aid to holding the thing when three sheets to the wind.

Today, paying a visit to the Faraday, in what used to be our electricity showrooms, for the first time in a while, my water was served in a new-to-me version of a nonik glass. Presumably intended for the alcopops of young people. The barmaid was quite proud of them and pleased that I had noticed. The place was more or less empty so perhaps she was bored.

In the course of the same expedition, I also found out why ambulances often seemed to be parked outside the McCarthy & Stone retirement residence in Waterloo Road, opposite the dentist there. It seems that while the residence sports a carriage entrance, as it were, the carriage entrance was not made big enough for ambulances, so that they can be parked discretely around the back. Never mind fire engines which might need to attend a fire around the back.

Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/02/a-special-sort-of-hand-eye-coordination.html.

Reference 2: https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/three-sheets-to-the-wind.html. From which I learn that the sheets in this colloquialism are the sheets of the sails of a square rigger, not the sails themselves. Although, I suppose it does amount to much the same thing.